From 1942 to 1945 Levine served in the Army. Upon his discharge from service he painted Welcome Home, a lampoon of the arrogance of military power; years later the painting would engender political controversy when it was included in a show of art in Moscow, and along with works by other American artists, raised suspicions in the House Un-American Activities Committee of pro-Communist sympathies.[7] In 1946 he married the painter Ruth Gikow and moved to New York City.

With a Fulbright grant he traveled to Europe in 1951, and was affected by the work of the Old Masters, particularly the Mannerism of El Greco, which inspired him to distort and exaggerate the forms of his figures for expressive purposes.[1] After returning he continued to paint biblical subjects, and also produced Gangster Funeral, a narrative which Levine referred to as a "comedy".[8] Further commentary on American life was furnished by Election Night (1954), Inauguration (1958), and Thirty- Five Minutes from Times Square (1956). Also in the late 1950s, Levine painted a series of sensitive portraits of his wife and daughter. In the 1960s Levine responded not only to political unrest in the United States with works such as Birmingham '63, but to international subjects as well, as in The Spanish Prison (1959–62), and later still, Panethnikon (1978), and The Arms Brokers, 1982-83. Following the death of his wife in the 1980s came an increased interest in Hebraism, and with it a proliferation of paintings with themes from the Old Testament.[9] In 1979 he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member and became a full Academician in 1982.